


A Grown-Up Friend

by Ashling



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Crossover, Fluff, Gen, Week of Ficlets, Week of Ficlets: Unforgotten 2020, Wood Between the Worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25776208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Both of them had a rollicking good time.
Relationships: Susan Pevensie & Anne Shirley
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16





	A Grown-Up Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



Sitting on a big rock with her bare feet dipping into the cold brook, Anne was so wrapped up in her daydreamed queen, pink silk puff sleeves and pure gold girdle and alabaster skin—she had looked up _alabaster_ in the dictionary at school, she knew what that meant now—that when a real queen showed up, it didn't surprise her very much. This queen had on a green dress that matched the forest around her, and some disappointingly sensible black boots, but there was a golden circlet on her head. That meant a queen. Anne knew nearly everything there was to know about queens, so she stood up and bowed. She was a little worried that the bare feet of it all would not be quite appropriate—if it wasn't appropriate for the pastor to see her running barefoot across the field, it probably wasn't appropriate for a queen to see her barefoot in the stream—but this queen didn't seem to mind very much. She was very beautiful, and when she smiled, the sunshine seemed to get brighter.

"Good day to you," said the Queen. She had an English accent. It was terribly exciting, and Anne couldn't help herself. She burst out into a stream of words.

"Oh, it _is,"_ Anne said. "You have no idea! Alabaster makes sense—that's a white kind of stone, very pale, I can picture it—and a girdle is a kind of belt with an end that droops down—but until now I had some trouble figuring out what divine beauty looked like, exactly. But you're just splendid. When I read _Idylls of the King,_ from now on, whenever he talks about Guinevere, I'm just going to picture you. It's so much easier to read when I have a clear picture of what everybody looks like. Will you sit down with me for a bit? I'm sure you have operas and duels and all kinds of things to get to, but it is so hot today and Matthew is away helping Alec McMurtry with a damaged barn and Marilla has a headache. And I've never met a queen before, ever." She gazed beseechingly at the Queen, or at least tried her best for a girl who didn't quite know what the word _beseeching_ meant.

It worked wonders. The Queen smiled and said, "Of course," and then, lo and behold, she took off her big black boots and her plaid socks and stuck her feet in the brook too, sighing happily at how cool and refreshing it was. Anne noticed that she also took off a small green ring and put it away in a hidden pocket of her dress. Then she held out her hand.

"I'm Susan," she said.

"I'm Anne." Anne shook her hand energetically. "You don't need to be clandestine—" she pronounced it clan-destiny "with me, though. I can see you're a Queen."

"Oh." Susan took off the gold circlet and shook her head. "I try not to travel with this thing on, but I forgot to take it off before my last jump." She looked at Anne, and Anne tried not to stare. "Do you want to try it?"

"Oh, could I?" Anne clasped her hands and tried to look worthy. 

"Of course. Bend forward, and there we go."

Anne peered at herself in the rippling mirror of the brook's crystal waters. The gold circlet looked so nice on her head that for a moment, she didn't even mind being red-headed.

"Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" said Susan. When Anne looked up at her, she saw that Susan had sat down on the riverbank, laid out some things beside her, and taken out a fat notebook.

"I'll tell you anything you want," said Anne. "What is that, though? Is that for magic?"

The long item by Susan's side was oddly curved, made of dyed wood, and carved meticulously in places to look like interlinking vines.

"Oh, that's my bow. Unstrung, for the moment." Susan patted it fondly.

"Are you hunting something?" said Anne, her eyes going round.

"No, not at the moment," said Susan. "Just all-round, all-purpose adventuring. A bit of questing, if you like."

This was so interesting that Anne forgot she wanted to take another look at herself in the brook. "What are you questing for?"

"Some people, a couple countries, a few particular eras. I'll know them when I see them." Seemingly from nowhere, Susan produced a short librarian's pencil. "Now, do you mind telling me what year this is, and what country we're in?"

"1877, Canada. Prince Edward Island," Anne hastened to add, because it was important the Queen know the part of the country to which all these lovely forests belonged. The Island deserved its credit.

"Oh," said Susan. She sounded pleased. "There's no dragons around, are there?"

"No," said Anne, a bit dubiously.

"There usually aren't," said Susan, "but I find it wise to make sure. No war?"

"No..." And again Anne wasn't entirely sure, but she felt like if there _was_ a war, Rachel Lynde would have complained about it at least once.

"Current Prime Minister is Alexander MacKenzie?"

"Yes," said Anne, relieved to be on solid ground again. "Matthew doesn't like him," she added.

Susan was taking notes, and if that wasn't enough to make Anne feel very important, Susan asked, "Who's Matthew?"

"Oh, Matthew's one of the loveliest men who ever lived," said Anne. "You would like him. He and Marilla (that's his sister) took me in with them to live at Green Gables because I'm an orphan. They wanted a boy, but—" Anne leaned in and gave a confidential little grin "—I think they're going to keep me anyway."

"They should," said Susan decidedly, and Anne was so happy she could have cried. "Now, do you mind if I ask you more questions?" She brandished her pencil. "I don't usually get to talk to little girls as bold as you—"

"Oh," said Anne, "Sorry."

"No, no, it's a good thing," said Susan. "I'm writing a book on all the worlds. It will probably go into multiple royal libraries. And nobody knows the lay of the land like little barefoot girls do, in my experience."

"Oh!" Anne beamed. She had had many a stroke of good luck in her life, but she had never imagined to meet a Queen AND be published in a book AND be allowed to talk as long as she wanted, all in the same afternoon. "Ask me anything you like."

And, over the course of the afternoon, Susan did. For Anne, it was one of the first times that an adult outside the Cuthbert family circle had taken her seriously; for Susan, it was one of the first times in many months that she had not been treated with great suspicion and politicking. Anne said twenty words to every one of Susan's, and both of them had a rollicking good time before Anne had to go back to Green Gables for dinner.

That evening, Anne very nearly got sent to bed without supper for telling tall tales, but it was well worth it. When she went to bed, she dreamed of stomping around the woods in big black boots with a golden crown on her head.


End file.
